


While You Were Sleeping

by Sing



Series: HeartWork Trilogy [1]
Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bravery, Coma, Comfort, Danny isn't a jerk, Drama, Feels, Fluff, Humor, I love a good mess don't you?, I think at some point we'll probably all cry, I will conflict my own heart, I will conflict your heart, Mess, Rewrite, this might get ridiculous quick, vaguely canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-31
Packaged: 2018-07-26 02:40:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 18,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7556908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sing/pseuds/Sing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Crane's return flight to Sleepy Hollow went down and he was in a coma for six months in addition to his nine month absence. He wakes and finds himself terrified that Abbie has been enduring the next tribulation alone.</p><p>But has she? what are the complications he'll find when he finally makes it back? </p><p>How has Abbie been managing the fight without him? </p><p>While Crane was Sleeping, the world kept turning. </p><p>Originally posted in my Multiship fic Blasphemy.</p><p>Comments welcome!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Suspended

_Beep_

_Beep_

_Beep_

_Abbie No!!!!_

His craggy eyes blink open and he casts his gaze around the room. 

A dream. He is not in the cave.

He has not just lost everything. 

The goddess the god, the box, her sacrifice, a horrific dream, nothing more. 

Or was it a premonition?

There is machinery all around him. And he's hooked up to it. "What--" he begins to move and then notes the IV and makes to remove it.

"It's supposed to be there, Mr. Crane." a nurse says. Woman with short pixie brown hair, smiling kindly at him while she fluffs his pillow and departs. 

"What's happened?"

"You've been in a coma."

"Coma?" the word guts him. Not so unlike his 200 year nap. "Nurse, how--how long," he swallows thickly. 

"Your flight went down six months ago. Glad to have you among us."

Six months

 _Six_. 

On his return flight to Sleepy Hollow, it had crashed and he had been relegated to six months abed. Drifting and living that horrible dream life, courting that pale girl and keeping his distance from the one he loves, watching her, attempt to woo a man not worthy of her charms---watching her die. 

Listening to her declare that her life's purpose had been to serve him. It's the most egregious affront to his sensibilities he can feel himself grow hot with rage but remembers he dreamt it---he prays that's all it was.

In comparison to the years in which he slumbered this amount of time alarms him. 

For, during his extended reprieve from life--he had not been  _living_ rather in a suspended, rather well preserved death. 

No, in this life time, that half year is actually time lost, time he will not regain. 

It's terrifying. 

"Does...does anyone know?"

The nurse pulls a frown. "No one's been in to see you. Lucky you had ID on you when it crashed."

"Was it fatal?"

"Good deal of survivors, actually. You weren't alone."

"Good," he nods, then yawns, groggy and so incredibly weary. How could he have done nothing for a month only to awaken still so drained? 

"Most woke before you though. You rest, Mr. Crane."

"Nurse?"

"Hmm?"

"Are...are you certain no one has come for me?"

_An angel with brown eyes?_

"Not a soul."

He hadn't told Abbie he was coming back after all, so eager was he about returning with the tablets, renewing their mission. 

Yet you never bothered to tell her of your return. 

"Am I in Sleepy Hollow?"

"No, I'm afraid not."

He has been away nine months.....in a half space for another six.

My God, he thinks. What if the next Tribulation has already begun? 

Has Abbie been facing this hell,  _alone?_


	2. Extended Solitude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is basically what happened during Incident at Stone manor, but sans Crane, because well, he was in a coma during this time.

There are certain elements of time and space that are constant not matter in which fashion we rejig it. 

One may always be destined to become a doctor, but a small decision might determine at what point in life, and in what they specialize. 

One may be destined to be a parent, again the manner in which this comes about, can take many forms---but the outcome still fulfilled.

And one, ranting and raving and rambling around in stone caverns alone, this such a one may be Abbie Mills, meandering here for going on what approximates almost three years--- _three_ for the six weeks that she has been gone. 

It takes her longer to get her wits about her before escape because there is so much less for her to cling to, so few remnants o sanity. It had already been such a long time since seeing Crane, the timbres of his voice had already begun to fade,  _before_ she waltzed into that tree to save Jenny. 

She has instead been tracing and retracing those damnable runes, strolling through hall after hall before she comes upon a chamber she's somehow managed to miss, and upon entry finds a shroud. 

Who wakes from that shroud isn't what she was expecting. 

* * *

"I find it hard to believe Ichabod would abandon a partner, he has always been true to me," Betsy huffs as they adjust the rope, peering down into the hole. "But man is fickle. Trustworthy as milk, they can turn in a second, I suppose." 

"Yeah well." Abbie laughs, haggard and a little unhinged. After all she is escaping the catacombs with  _Betsy Ross_ flag woman and Ichabod's former partner and love. "Somethings never change."

Betsy glances at her, disconcerted by this woman of colour that commands as much space as she does, who does not bow her head and carries an air of bravery that would have been unheard of. It is uncomfortable but not abhorrent. "You say you are free here? a woman of justice?"

"FBI---yes" she explains quickly at the puzzled look that crosses Betsy's face. 

"Hmmph. Ichabod has a special knack for picking women above him. It is good to see he does not stray from habit." she smirks.

"Oh, Crane and I aren't---"

"Yet." Betsy cuts her off.  "Not yet. I use to say the same of him when we first met. Why I ever lowered myself to that rebellious bookworm--"

Abbie snorts a laugh here and Betsy giggles. 

"I'll never know. He has a way about him I suppose. But he aims too high and then seldom knows what to do with it once in his reach. He's clumsy with emotions. Were they glass balls in his hands to juggle they would surely break." 

Abbie laughs harder mostly to cover up the ache in her heart. The gap that still echoes hurt from this extended abandonment. The haunting hollow space he has left beside her on the battle field. There is no one to mutter his anecdotes and unlikely but helpful facts from founding fathers as they thwart a monster. No pistol at the ready, and none of his soft spoken, affectionate though commanding 'Leftenants' to pepper the days. 

Betsy raises a brow at Abbie's laughter and then heaves herself up. "You have a warrior spirit Abbie. I wish you the full use of it.....and further more, if you're anything like I was and even if not.....do not meander for Ichabod Crane."

It shocks Abbie and she blinks. "What---"

"I waited." Betsy answers simply. "I sent word and heard nothing back. I don't entertain that he broke my heart but a dent is there. And our partnership not as long, nor deep. If.....By God if there is more to him, I pray he will live up to it. But don't you spoil him. Live your life. He will fight for you if you belong. And if he does not know you have spared yourself insurmountable heartache. And be richer for it." Standing atop the hole she looks over her shoulder down into the depths of blackness. "A pleasure, Abbie." she smiles, bobs her head in a sort of bow and then pushes herself off and down. 

Abbie listens to the echo of her ecstatic scream of triumph before she takes the leap down herself. 

* * *

When she staggers into the archives she's met with Jenny and Joe, even Sophie, and another face. 

She wants to ask how and when did he get here, what have the others told him to explain---but exhaustion, blessed exhaustion, a craving and need for sleep---overcome her, then and there. 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So who just showed up at the archives? a) Danny? b) Calvin Riggs? c) Orion?


	3. They Tell Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this was longer than expected.

"They tell me you're a superhero." 

Abbie blinked open her eyes to Danny on the edge of her bed. She's not sure when she got home nor who brought her upstairs but she has an uncomfortable feeling it might have been him. There's the sound of chatter and clinking downstairs however, so they're not alone.

Abbie chuckles weakly and falls into a coughing fit. 

"Hey hey slow down," he says, passing her a glass of water and pulling back with concern etched in his face. It's weird, because Abbie's not sure if she's dealing with boss man, former flame or friend. Danny comes in so many shades and he's a bit reckless with how he switches from one to the other. He use to give her whiplash in Quantico, the abrupt shift from serious to astoundingly playful. But more recently from heated emotion to curt boss. He's still staring as she drinks and sets the cup back down carefully before her stomach revolts and she spits the fluid back up embarrassingly all over herself and the sheet. 

Body isn't quite up to the task of ingesting anything just yet. Without a mutter he moves out into the hall, hollering for directions to the linen closet and Jenny answers but shortly after appears upstairs beside him and both re-enter carrying a towel.

"You okay?" Jenny asks, crossing the room and dabbing at her chin. Her head pounds and the solidity of a world that isn't stone is still messing with her senses, toying with her mind. 

"That really you Jenny?" 

A choked laugh before her sisters arms curl around her. "It'll be me next time okay?"

"Jenny I--"

"Next big heroic gesture's on me," she insists sternly, voice breaking on a sob and Abbie hugs back her sister just as tight. Danny clears his throat. 

"I'll just,"

"You told him?" Abbie asks.

Jenny shrugs. "He started trailing Foster when she started hanging with us and not being as helpful to him as he would have liked. He launched a man hunt. Had me in interviews  _three times_ "

"You thought  _Jenny_ would hurt me?" 

Danny throws his hands up in the air. "You vanish without a trace and she's your only relative and telling me the same story I---you know the kind of messed up things we see. Have seen."

"But my sister?"

"He  was fraying at the edges." Jenny cuts in and Abbie feels mildly betrayed that she seems to be defending him. "We  _all_ were. I....Don't make me have to picture  a world without you in it again."

"We all die Jenny---"

"Not yet." her sister cuts her off, eyes brimming with tears. "Not yet Abbie. You've got at least another fifty in you, don't you think?"

"You buy this?" she directs to Danny. "That I'm a Witness preventing the apocalypse?"

"Tangled with some mirror demon couple weeks ago and a gargoyle not long after that. I'd say I'm a believer." 

"Well. Welcome to the team, I guess."

"Heard there was an opening for a partner anyway."

Yes. No. Maybe so. 

"We've got to haze you first." Jenny interrupts helpfully. "You don't just get in the club because you know the Head."

"I thought that's how most of these things work."

"In the natural world. Not in ours."

Abbie laughs softly. "I hope you know what you're getting yourself into."

"I don't. But I'm not gonna stand idle and hear tell of you vanishing into a  _tree_ again either. Or portal or whatever---"

"It's my job it's what I do---"

"Consider _living_ a job too, alright Mills? You wouldn't half ass that would you? No you'd show up on time and do your best at it. Treat living like that." 

"Oh Danny," she starts, brushing him off. 

"Abs. I mean it." 

* * *

That was some months ago. 

Some part of Abbie had tucked her relationship with Danny away into a tidy neat corner, double wrapped with tape and locked up. Safe. Contained. Non-threatening. 

So the fact that somehow over the next few months that box just seemed to, fly open, dismayed her to say the least. 

He was just being Danny. The one she fell for in that reckless time during training---and that's the real him. The staunch hard faced man he shows at the office is bravado and badly affected and he's apologized repeatedly since then for showing that stony facade to Abbie. He made excuses at first. Then apologized for making excuses. 

"I was being a priss." he said out of the blue not a week after her return. "Trying to come down hard on you and all that and, I never really got over us. I'm sorry that I made you uncomfortable."

"Don't flatter yourself." she'd said. 

"Nothing can phase you, huh? Good or bad, what, you stop feeling Abbie? is that it? What I wouldn't give to at least see you get angry."

I mean, she thinks in that moment. I still have severe left over jet lag from a three year stay in a timeless place so anger isn't high on my priorities list, but says instead "Takes too much energy to be angry Danny. It's a waste of time."

"Laugh then, cry, something."

"I've been back a week!" she yells in frustration. "You in a hurry for me to have a breakdown or something---"

"It can't be natural to be this calm cool collected all the time. You've been doing this however long before I turned up and started giving you workplace drama. And it never shows. It never shows, Abbie. Keep bottling it up and you're gonna hurt yourself, if you're not already." 

What, she'd thought bitterly. You want me to wail and weep about how I feel discarded by this phantom of a man who skipped town without a word? How I bought that house and, Lord only knows what foolish notion I had then when I did, but it's too big for just me there, but I won't sell it because I keep thinking he might come back---

"If you don't wanna talk, we can go to the range." he'd offered. "Shoot it out if you won't talk it out."

"You're a piece of work."

"Looks who's talking."

They went shooting. 

Religiously for three weeks. Then rock climbing. Hikes. He held his distance, observing her as if always waiting for her top to blow. And it was this, patient lying in wait, that did it.

For Abbie hates being coddles and hates being fussed and cannot stomach pity. She decides to cancel on Danny for an outing. He opts to reschedule. She declines. And suddenly they're arguing over the phone and he can't seem to understand that he's on the verge of stifling her and she can't seem to understand that this is what it feels like when someone cares. That this is no more time than she would have spent with Crane, on any given day. Less, far less by comparison. But he's gone now and she has a lot of empty hours to fill and.....occupying them with Danny feels dangerous somehow, like she might be walking into a trap. 

"Because I don't want to feel it." she blurts suddenly and then drops the phone. For crying out loud did she just say that? 

"Abbie?" she could still hear his voice, panicked now, coming from speaker. 

With trembling hands she picks it up. "Danny."

"What do you mean you don't want to feel it?" he presses.

"Nothing, Danny."

"Yeah right."

"Leave it alone Danny."

"You're not any less of a fortified wall if you cry okay?"

" _what?"_  

"I don't know Abbie it seems to me somewhere somehow you got it into your head that you're not allowed to feel things or want things, I don't know you think people won't respect you? won't listen? "

"Danny."

"Whatever you're walling off or blocking out, you're getting in your own way."

"Why do I feel like you're just trying to get back together"

"I mean if  that's the case, you should know I wouldn't be trying to get back together out of boredom."

"Unless you're a sociopath."

"I'm sure I have test results somewhere that prove I'm not." 

"Danny please."

"You're a human being, Abbie. Humans, feel, things."

"I don't want to get hurt Danny."

".....did I....."

"No. No.....it wasn't......"

"This the partner MIA?"

Her silence is answer enough. 

"He really didn't tell you he was going?"

"He must have had a reason."

"Probably did." Danny concedes. "But reasons don't make it right. Doesn't make it fair."

"You still wanna go to the range?"

"Not one bit. Let's get coffee Abs."

"Is this a date?"

"You really think I have no conscience don't you" 

It wouldn't be a date until a month after that. 

After she had already fallen apart at the seams after a battle---the weight of it, this fight on her shoulders and the things she kept refusing to say---all came streaming out like an unrelenting tide and it shocked her with the force of it. Betrayed her entirely making her seek the comfort of his arms. He'd held her, and that was all. 

His chin on her crown, and rubbing small circles on her back. "Let it out." 

She cried so much she thought her whole being had run dry. 

And he just sat there and let her and his shirt was soaked through when done and joking gently about sending her a dry cleaning bill for all of the Demon guts and foliage on his shirt and suit he'd asked if she wanted a cup of tea. 

She'd said yes.

"Sugar?"

"Black."

"Black it is." and handed it to her, peppermint strong and sat there and watched her drink it, removed the mug and followed with, "toast? tv?"

"I just wanna get upstairs."

So up they went, she'd injured her foot and arm so he helped her up the steps into her room. Peeled off her socks and picked leaves from her hair. 

"Anything else?" and saw the moment he regretted asking flit across his face.

Of course her clothes. 

"For old times sake," she invites with a weak smile. It kills her to admit this but she needs the help. 

"Grief," he huffs and had carefully slowly unbuttoned her shirt, pushing it down off her shoulders as he finished tugging it off their eyes met, connected and held. "Grief" he mutters again, tearing away from the gaze and cursing as the next item up for removal is her pants. She gets the button undone but he has to haul them down her legs, gingerly, careful, mindful of her hurt foot as he pulls them off and now completely divested of her clothes in nothing but her underwear Danny turns for the laundry. 

When he returns the same tedious torturous business of getting Abbie  _in_ night clothes looms large around them. He rummages for a long sleep shirt and helps her into it, one arm at a time and buttons her back up and once more he is so near to her and---Screw it---he thinks before he presses a kiss to her forehead. He feels her fingers wrap in the fabric of his shirt.

"Abs."

"Stay, Danny. Please stay."

"If I stay, Abs. I'm not gonna leave." he cautions. "I'm not gonna let go this time." he pulls away and tips her chin up to look at him. "I'm not going to stop trying to make you happy, not going to stop trying to do it all right Abbie, don't ask me---"

"What, are you afraid of getting hurt?" she asks wearily. "Now you know how it feels."

He can practically sense her closing off again the instant she's said it. "I am." he admits. "But hurt me damnit because we're alive. Pain is part of living."

"I need more than pain Danny, I need," what doesn't she need. Peace and quiet and healing and warmth and affection and----

"Name it." He cuts into her thoughts. "Name it." 

* * *

 

She's not sure what she named, when she looks back on it. 

That night he curled around her and fell asleep.

It would be after that, after they'd started really dating, before they did something more, recreational. 

Now she takes in his smooth dark back in her bed. 

She's happy, that's the funny thing.

Danny is the same Danny she got swept up in, smart and witty, athletic and fun and true to his word. He's a horrible cook but he knows great restaurants. He's a wonderful dancer but has rubbish tastes in music. He's a fantastic listener and loves to talk with her and push her buttons and he holds her accountable to herself when she's not treating herself right. Calls her out on not sleeping enough, on being too silent,told her to keep a journal, which she does now. 

She told him about Crane. 

Everything, about Crane.

Even what she doesn't understand. 

It hadn't been an easy thing for him to listen to, but it didn't make him care less.

She turns and pads out of the room, downstairs to make breakfast. 

* * *

Jenny and Joe blink blearily at the figure standing outside the trailer. "Crane?" 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> how's Crane gonna deal?


	4. Long Time No See

"Master Corbin" Crane greets, face puzzled.

Jenny and Joe exchange a look. Crane has no idea Joe even came back to Sleepy Hollow, even less understanding that her and Joe have gotten together and have been living in the trailer. 

Knows nothing of fighting Pandora and the Hidden One and come to think of it----

If Joe has suspected Jenny was going to deck Crane then and there he might have intervened. Glaring at Jenny and making a tsking noise he reaches to help the man to his feet. Crane's a stranger to him, essentially. He remembers meeting him the first time around when dealing with the Wendigo but nothing beyond that. 

"Thank you, Master Corbin. Miss Jenny that seemed highly uncalled for."

"Vanish for a year and a quarter, and I'm uncalled for?"

He staggers. He's counted the months yes but to hear it voiced aloud outside of his own head is a unique pain. "I can explain."

"To who? not me, you owe Abbie explanations. But you know what, what the hell while we're at it, where do you get  _off_ ditching Abbie like that huh?"

* * *

 

"I've never heard something so sorry." Jenny mutters when Crane leaves, closing the door behind them. "The weakest excuse, he needed to clear his head? people take a two week holiday not nine months, and then a coma? I must look like I was born yesterday."

"I'd hope not because that would make me a huge creep." Joe teases, wrapping his arms around her. "He's really been gone all that time?"

"Without a word or trace or letter or anything. And Crane knows how to use a computer by now so I don't see why he couldn't have at least emailed her."

"He says the plane went down."

"If its true he gets a free pass for that missing half year. But the  _nine months before then?_ he's one hundred percent accountable for. And I direly hope someone holds him to it."

"Abbie will." Joe assures her. "Boy will she ever."

"If not her then Danny, or both---"

the pair exchange glances and then at once reach for their jackets and shoes. 

"Maybe he shouldn't be facing those two alone."

* * *

"Hmm why don't we go out for breakfast?" Danny asks, sidling up behind her, hands to her waist. She smirks as she puts the pan on the stove and reaches overhead for the cooking spray. 

"You know Danny, cooking is just like monster fighting, the more you do it the better you get at it" 

He groans. This is not the first time Abbie has offered to help him learn to cook and he's come to the conclusion she does it purely for the enjoyment of watching how miserable he is at it. But she never complains. She eats the salty eggs and the burned meatloaves and dry chicken---simple recipes Danny always manages to mangle---but she eats them because, he supposes, she likes the effort he puts in, even knowing it's going to turn out badly. And he does like being in the kitchen with her, truth be told. 

He's just not very much help.

"Come on Abs," he protests weakly before he lets her shove a whisk in one hand and a bowl in the other and she sidesteps him easily, grabs eggs, cracks them and then says, chipper and bright "whisk."

Grumbling--though all for show-- he adds pinches of salt and pepper and sets the bowl down just as she comes around behind him, with peppers and chopping board and knife in hand and he rolls his eyes to the ceiling as she places one of her small hands over his own and begins to guide him with he knife, pressing into the colourful vegetables. "There, you, go." she coos.

"Mills" he groans but she reaches up to peck his cheek and he chuckles. "Mushrooms?"

"Sure," Abbie smiles, headed back to the fridge when the door bell goes. "I could have sworn I bought---Danny could you get that?"

Setting aside his cooking tools he wipes his hands off and heads for the door. 

"Good morning how can I help you?"

There's a blue eyed oddly dressed man on the other side of the door and he looks absolutely dumbfounded. He gapes, blinks and then finds his voice. "I apologize. I was told this is the home of Miss Grace Abigail Mills."

"Abs?" Danny asks, puzzled. 

In the kitchen Abbie at last lays hands on the mushrooms pulling out cheese too and hears her name. She glides toward the door. "Hey Danny, who is it?" she asks, slipping an arm around his waist and looking up at him before turning her gaze on the man filling the doorway. 

Crane's face flushes. Never in his life.....

Abbie's wearing a little mauve silk top and short matching bottoms, impossibly short. They leave  _nothing_ to the imagination and this is more of his dear Leftenant that he had ever imagined he would lay eyes upon. He'd savour the glorious view if she hadn't just twined herself around the man who is now regarding him with narrowed eyes. 

He notes the man's naked chest, her scantily clad and their close proximity and feels a strange, alien nauseated feeling. 

"Crane?" she blinks at him repeatedly as if she cannot even process his presence here. 

Crane's eyes widen as Danny's hand comes to rest on Abbie's hip, fingers skimming over the smooth fabric and the skin of her waist where the top rides up a bit. It's early in the morning and these two dressed how they are, behaving how they are must mean---- 

It's bad manners.

Especially given his lengthy unexplained absence.

But he turns and throws up in her bushes. 

 


	5. Thorny Situation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I like putting Abbie in complicated situations, don't ask me why.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chap! sorry!

"Crane!" Abbie shouts and beside her Danny groans. 

"I  _just_ planted those." In all honesty it had been just the week before that Danny had suggested some greenery, and him and Abbie had gone shopping and brought home--cliched they know---rose bushes, now being watered by the contents or lack there of, of Crane's stomach. 

"Crane!" Abbie barks again, dismayed and starting towards him, Danny following behind her as they grasp Crane, pulling him upright. "Only you," she mutters, backing him up toward the porch step and forcing him to sit down. "Only you, with your colonial botched zombified hide and go seeking self could pull Houdini on me for over a year," she grunts, stomping past him, into the house and then back out with a damp cloth and hauling it roughly across his mouth and taking the glass of water Danny has brought out, offers it to him. "Could storm into my life  _again_ and first things first vomit in my plants." 

"Miss Mills, I---" and he stammers because Abbie is leaning over him, eyes narrowed in scrutiny and he can see down her top. 

And how much nothing there is underneath it. 

"Miss Mills I?" she repeats, anger flaring up, hot and quick. "This ought to  be good." she drawls, rocking back with her arms folded. "You, what, Crane. Got lost?"

"This him?" Danny interrupts, disbelief on his face. This? This is the man that has caused her so much tumult? This is supposed to be her fellow warrior? But....Danny thinks, screwing up his mouth. He's...skinny. And,  _pale_ and alright, he'll give him the pretty hair and the blue eyes---he knows women go for that kinda of thing and he supposes the accent helps but geez--Abbie was worked up over him? If he didn't think it would land him in the dog house he might have laughed aloud. 

"The one and only." Abbie grouches, rolling her eyes. "Un-freaking-believable, I just....argh!" she makes as if to lurch for his throat before she stops herself. "I just can't  _believe_ you! I mean---Hell, how many months? Damn Crane if I ticked you off you should have said"

"Miss Mills---"

"I mean---" she throws her arms up in the air, at a loss for words. There are so, many, words, she can say here and she can't seem to sort out any of them properly.  _I missed you. I hated you. How could you leave? Abandon me? I  pretty much gave up on ever seeing you again and that I was flying solo from now on---I followed my dreams, I've been living my life I have someone who cares about me and I_ _ **still** miss you_  

 _I don't know if I should knock your teeth in or hug you_  

Strong arms wrap around her, turning her into the solidity of his chest. Thank Heavens for Danny, she thinks as she inhales deeply, relaxing into the familiar warmth of him and the strength and protection he offers. 

Abbie's never needed protecting and certainly doesn't make a point of asking for help---but Danny gives these things to her freely, and still manages to make her feel strong while doing it. "Hey, take it easy. Easy." he coaxes, voice warm velvet and he kisses her crown. 

Crane watches this and feels his stomach planning another rebellion before the voices of Jenny and Joe ring out. 

"Don't kill him!" Jenny waves as they approach. "Yet, anyway. I'd like a crack at him if we're gonna tear him limb from limb."

"Down girl," Danny jokes and Jenny sticks her tongue out at him. "I think if anything, we're all in shock, yeah?" he draws away from Abbie to meet her eyes. "Yeah?"

She cuts her eye at Crane. Shock is one way to put it, "yeah."

"Yeah. Sure. So, how about this, Crane, why don't you come by, another time, huh? You owe Abbie an explanation, I mean I don't know how you run your partnership but duty means showing up to do the job." 

"You are?" Crane manages at last. 

"Daniel Reynolds. Abbie's fiance."

"Whoa!" Joe rushes forward and Abbie scoffs, shrugging out from under Danny and heads inside, she's had enough of these dramatics today. 

This time, Crane faints. 


	6. The Night Before

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well this starts with some of Abbie's relationship with Danny, right up to the night before Crane showed up on their doorstep being all sorts of messy ill in their shrubbery. 
> 
> I unapologetically went there, I challenged myself. 
> 
> Hopefully you'll stay with me and see where I go! 
> 
> I mean, you trust me, don't you? don't I always promise a good time?

Saying I love you was both the hardest and easiest thing. 

Hard to think about, for her to ever consider, feeling, but easier---shockingly so, for the words to pass her lips. 

This was roughly two weeks ago. 

In a secret lab being kept by --go figure-- one of Ichabod's foes. That was the irksome thing about this mission. Even with him not being there, all of these clues and pieces and monsters seemed to still have some connection to Crane. Which often resulted in tedious long nights with Danny, Jenny and Joe, doing research and forcing themselves to become secondhand experts on his life. It was exhausting.

Crane himself was an exhausting man. Making sense of his connections to these events through texts and accounts and deciphering stupid codes----well they all muttered multiple curses during those times. But there they were, and the devil lanced his stinger and Danny was bleeding and venom was soaking into the gash in his head and Abbie was fighting the draw of that rune that had haunted her since----it had been one of the things Danny had caught on to almost immediately, never taking anything at face value---he'd been making her journal and talk about that, too. 

But the venom was coursing through him and she was reaching for the talisman and when she finally shook herself out she had to figure out the damn anecdote all over again, murmuring over and over again her apologies. "Danny, Danny, I'm so sorry, stay with me, okay? Danny? Danny?"

"I know you....got....me....Mills" and he'd gone slack, sprawling on the floor. Fear had hit her system like a high potency drug and she was on the floor, propping him up, tilting his head back, pouring the potion in his mouth and then begging and praying and this was everything she had feared from the beginning, that she would get hurt, be alone and--"Danny,  _please"_

Abbie never begged. 

Never.

And if Danny had heard the desperation in her tone as the tears started down her cheeks and she kissed his crown and held him so close and so tight---he never, once, mentioned it. 

"Danny  _please don't **leave me** " _Despairing she had thrown her gaze around the room, looking for anything, anything that could help and clutched the symbol for solace, something resembling peace of mind. It barely dulled the anxiety racing through her at that moment. "Danny  ** _I love you please_** " 

He was so still in her arms. She buried her head in the crook of his neck and wrapped around him. Crying repeatedly No, no, no. 

And then he breathed. And his hand came up, so lightening quick it surprised her and he blinked his eyes open. "Abs?" he'd asked unsurely. 

"I'm here Danny" laughing her relief. "Danny, I'm here," and to hell with however weak he may have been feeling nothing else mattered more than she know he was alive and he know she cared and she kissed the side of his face repeatedly. "Don't you ever scare me like that again." a fierce whisper in his ear. 

Groaning and a weak chuckle that quickly devolved into a coughing fit. "I told you I'm not gonna leave." grasping a hand and kissing her knuckles and seeing the tears in her eyes. "Oh Abs." 

"I hate you." she sniffled into her sleeve, tugging her hand away and drying her eyes. 

"I know." he said, rising slowly to his feet, pulling her up and against him, even still wobbly on his feet, and the gash still bleeding. "You hate me with all your heart."

"Every last ounce of it." 

Would she cite adrenaline or fear later on? who knows. Or maybe it was true. Maybe without knowing it, she had somehow managed to make room enough in her heart for this to bloom. 

"It's not hate." she corrects as they stagger out. "Danny I....I don't know if you heard me in there," 

His grip on her hand tightened. 

"Danny?"

"You were scared, Abs."

"Does that make it less true?"

He stopped, turned to face her, hands on her arms. "I don't know Abbie. You tell me."

"I don't know, Danny. I.....it might have been the situation but....I'm not taking it back."

He'd stroked the side of her face. "This is a scary world to live in," he'd said. "Never knowing what's going to happen---Abbie I've loved you since you left me behind. I never let you go." he admits softly. " I still love you. Gets stronger everyday."

"So?"

"I love you." 

"That's it?"

Smirking he'd stepped in and bent to kiss her. "That's all there is to it. I love you Abbie."

* * *

Perhaps it was the concentrated time together and facing peril after peril but their bond had grown deep and strong quickly. It should have scared her but Danny was sure. There weren't any questions or doubts.

The following week, trapped on opposite sides of the archives with Pandora and the god, Danny has used the runes to trap the Hidden One---she'd given it to Danny to keep safe---she really trusted him---and when it was all over, runes into dust and the archives and tunnel rocking, it had been  _Danny_ taking off at a full hard run through the tunnels to find her.

He'd bowled her over in his haste and she'd emitted a squeak before his mouth sealed over hers and he was repeating grateful words over and over. 

"You were the one trapped with a god," she'd laughed, smacking him to get up. 

"I'm not afraid of the Hidden One, Pandora worries me more."

"Why?"

He'd glanced at her out the corner of his eye, a small smile playing across his lips. "I never underestimate a strong woman." 

* * *

Last night, had been a slow one.

Such a rare thing, a slow night. 

They'd gone dancing. 

She'd raised her brows at him at the suggestion. "Don't look at me like that Mills I know you got moves," he'd teased, miming a salsa in her living room. She'd snickered over the rim of her wine glass, shaking her head. "Come on," he wheedled, dancing his rhythmic hips towards her and grasping her small hands in his, tugging her off the stool. "I'm gonna go slip into something, sexy for you." he purrs and Abbie is shrieking with laughter as he twirls her around the room. "Just throw on a dress and let's go." 

She wore a red dress, of course, an asymmetrical ruffle cut thing she'd forgotten she owned. Danny had been in and out the shower fast in a grey shirt button down, smelling warm and spicy and they went dancing. 

They did every single dance move and a few Abbie doubted her ability to carry out but Danny was agile and coordinated and a little bit of a show off, dipping her and lifting her every chance available and all eyes were on them the whole night and she didn't care that they were a well dressed and admired spectacle. He looked at her like the only person in the room. His proximity so close, eyes so intent, and his hands on her hips so deliberate her body flushed with warmth. Crackled with electricity. Alive. Betsy's words came back to her at that moment, warm, dancing, fired up in his arms.

_"You have a warrior spirit Abbie. I wish you the full use of it...."_

" _Live your life.."_

"Danny," she whispered with an inviting smile. "Let's finish this dance at home,"

* * *

 

 _"Danny"_ It has always amazed her that even for all of his bravado, Danny never bragged about the way she reacted to him in bed. He was enthusiastically thrilled by it of course, such a rare treat to have Abbie be volatile and vulnerable and bare, but he never tried to use it as some sort of leverage. Not like Luke Morales who would preen and strut the next morning. 

"Come on Abs," he coaxes. "I've got more to give don't hold on to this one.  _let go---_ " 

She erupts, breathless and body heaving and flushed as he withdraws his fingers and she hauls him up to kiss him. It's always like this with Danny and she tries to remind herself how  _why_ she had made herself pull away.

_Because of him, her mind echoes. Because of Crane. Because you gave him an underserved pass for bailing out on you, because, sure, at least it gave you time to finish your training, but you'll tell him off proper when he returns and then it'll all be back to normal and he can move in here and you'll be closer---_

"Abs?" Danny breaks into her thoughts, readying himself to enter. 

"Sorry guess I was blissed out," she laughs and then they're together and moving and then she  _is_ blissed out. And safe.

After with his arms curled around her, she is safe. 

Yes, now she can understand how she let herself get so out of hand, how she got to this point of sharing and giving so freely. 

Because Danny stepped up and stepped in and filled the absence of Crane and gave her a safe space. A place to be all of the things she guarded around Crane because wasn't she always being mindful of Crane? Adapting to the future, social norms, his family drama, his _manners_ his inability to  _say anything about **them** , _where had there ever been room for Abbie to properly entertain any growing feelings for Crane? Where had been the safe place? 

There wasn't. 

But she can be reckless with Danny. She could hurt Danny, and he would let her because he sees the value in taking everything there is to have in life and damn the falls and bruises later because they're living and that's worth something. They're feeling and making the best of the world, this, apocalyptic mess, and each other. 

He lifts his arm from around her, turning to fumble for something in the nightstand drawer. 

Another invasion that happened so easily. Letting him move his stuff in. It's not all of it. But enough to keep him comfy when he stays over. He'd protested against moving over entirely. "I know you need your space sometimes." he'd said. 

And when his arm drops back heavily around her and he kisses the back of her neck, leans up to kiss behind her ear, he brings an object around in front of her face. Her eyes snap open when she hears a sort of muffled crack. 

And then she's looking at a ring. Her breath catches. 

"Danny," she starts, sitting up and he rises with her. "Danny" she repeats because there aren't words for this. 

"I meant it. I mean it everytime, Abs, I'm not gonna leave. I love you." a kiss to her shoulder. "Will you marry me?" 

_"if you're anything like I was and even if not.....do not meander for Ichabod Crane."_

_" _Live your life.."__

A sound of some sort escaped her, it must have, but she barely recognizes her own voice. Barely registers what's happening, blinking dazedly as the ring gets slipped on her finger. 

She must have said, " _Yes"_

* * *

 

Jenny left Joe outside to tend to Crane and Danny went back in the house to get the man a cup of coffee. "Considerate of you." Jenny says as she passes him. Danny shrugs. 

"I mean maybe he'll stop fainting and throwing up after a good cup. Get himself home at least to rest and have a proper talk tomorrow."

"It's funny you think we'll have time to  _talk_ tomorrow. But hang on to that thought, I'm gonna go ask my sister how you came to be engaged and I'm just hearing about it," she calls.

"You want a cup Jenny?" he calls back. 

It's hard to be properly irritated with Danny. He's like a stern sort of brother figure, but with a great sense of humour. She tries not to compare him to Crane, who she used to view similarly, although more so as a brother she could pick on. 

"Thanks Reynolds."

Upstairs Abbie is stuffing herself into clothes and whoop there it is, sparkling bauble on her sisters finger. "So you wanna tell me this?" she asks.

"Oh Jenny." Abbie groans, burying her face in her hands. "How, how is this my life?"

"You're the one who said yes, apparently."

"I don't mean that, I mean Crane."

"Yeah...well....he's got....timing, that's for sure. But you're evading my question, how did he propose?"

Abbie clears her throat. "Last night."

"Yeah, and,"

" _In bed_ "

"And?"

" _JENNY!"_

"I mean in the middle of the ride or----"

" _GET OUT OF MY ROOM!"_

Jenny keels over laughing. 

* * *

 

Just coming to outside Joe and Danny help him to sit on the porch swing and he numbly accepts the proffered cup. 

"Betrothed." he whispers in awe. 

Danny quirks a brow. Joe does the same. 

"She's...." he glances and sweeps his gaze over Danny from head to toe. "marrying you?"

Joe claps Danny on the shoulder lightly. "Congrats man," but his eyes are on Crane who looks incredibly weary. "You know what Crane, let's get you back to the trailer, huh? what do you say?"

Crane looks over at him gratefully. "Yes, thank you, Master Corbin." he hasn't drank a drop of the coffee and hands it back to Danny, nodding his thanks, though it pains him. He lets Joe lead him down the steps of the porch, Joe half propping him up, and he is infinitely grateful. He looks over his shoulder at the man who has claimed Abbie's heart, and apparently her future, and musters enough courage to say, "Congratulations,"

"Come on," Joe implores. "No more faints and purging. Come on."

"Lead the way, Master Corbin." he sighs heavily, feet shuffling along. "Lead the way." 

 

 

 

 

 


	7. Sailing Sailing

"So long as you're happy," Jenny says, flopping down on Abbie's bed. A small smile dances across her sisters lips. "You love him?"

"I'm wearing the ring aren't I?" she fires back, taming her hair into a neat bun on top her head. Two natural curly tendrils frame her face. 

"You didn't answer my question."

"You know me to make decisions about my life on a whim? Come on, with any luck Crane is gone and Danny's figured out how to fold an omelette."

Jenny scoffs. "You're giving him way too much credit." A pillow whacks into her face and she springs to her feet just in time to catch Abbie sprinting from the room. She launches a pillow at her retreating back when Abbie is half way down the stairs. 

Danny saunters into the hall then with a raised brow and an amused smile. "Mills girls at war?"

"Hah, hardly," Abbie replies, before another pelts into her making her stagger. "I'm gonna get you for that." she warns Jenny who skips nimbly past her  into the kitchen and then exclaims.

"Well.....he made.... _something,_ alright"

Danny rubs the back of his neck self consciously. "They didn't... quite..... hold,"

"I know Danny, I know. Thank you," she sings, leaning up to kiss him and then hollers after her sister. "Leave my man and his can't cook self alone!"

Danny balks. "Hey!"

 

* * *

"Here we go." 

Crane, who has been sitting numbly on the narrow bed passing structure in the trailer accepts the grilled cheese sandwich he's offered but cannot bring himself to take a bite. "My thanks, Master Corbin."

"Nuh-uh. 'I've heard about this with you,  _Joe_ say it with me,  _Joe_ "

The smallest upturn of the corners of Crane's mouth before he turns his gaze back to the sandwich. 

It's a sure sign of madness that he thinks the golden rich toast shimmers like Abbie's skin in the sun. He' absolutely lost it. 

"You wanna talk about it?" Joe presses.

A half laugh and weary eyed, Crane speaks. "I don't quite know where to begin."

"Well you can pick up with why you skipped out on Abbie. That's kinda the million dollar question."

"Did she tell you? The Leftenant?"

Joe frowns. "She's not that, anymore, by the way. She's FBI now. Agent Mills."

" _Agent. Mills_ " he nods dutifully. Well that's once facet of his coma dream come true. He can't decide if that's a comfort to him or not, for how much of what he dreamed has come to pass without him present? But at least she fulfilled her dream, picked up on the route she'd left off of. "And he...."

"Her Boss." Joe answers uncomfortably, not liking the incredulous glare Crane gives him. 

"Her superior?"

"Apparently they had a thing during training and somehow he got bumped to head of the office out here. They had a bit of a rough start, in the beginning, trying to balance their past and present.....everything just made more sense when they stopped fighting it....." he trails off, watching Crane's reaction carefully. 

The trailer is small and carpeted. Jenny won't be impressed with him if Crane decides to have some other sort of bodily malfunction in there. 

"He was worried sick when she disappeared."

Crane's eye snap into focus then. "Disappeared?"

"A.....Look there was some, rock, gem, eye of anubis? that we were tracking down from a man named Nevins, knew my father---a story for another time--" he hurries on as Crane's gaze begins to become less world weary and decidedly more inquisitive, he'd even say the odd man's ears had perked up. "Anyway, Nevins was already under heat from the FBI and---"

"Sophie Foster was an undercover agent. Miss Mills warned you and Miss Jenny to leave the case alone"

Joe regards him with slack jawed awe. "Yes...." he admits slowly. "How did you---"

"But you didn't listen. You wanted to know more about what your father was involved in," Crane licks his lips. sitting up straighter, all the details of that horrifying fever dream snapping into clear focus. "Jenny absorbed the eye. It's power. And Pandora---"

Joe has gone ash white now and he begins to sweat. Perhaps  _he_ is the one who's about to be sick. 

"She woke the Hidden One. And the eye was going to destroy Jennifer until----you found a way, a rock that would contain it. Miss Mills drew it from her sisters body and she ran into that infernal tree." he slams his fist into the wall hard and Joe hisses to see Crane's split knuckles. "And it exploded, didn't it. With.....with....with her,  ** _in it_**."he chokes.

"Crane." Joe leans forward, resting a hand on the mans shoulder. "How do you know all of that."

"In my coma," he laughs softly, in dark disbelief. "I saw it, dreamed it, my God!" he lurches and grabs Joe's collar. "How long was she in the catacombs?" he demands frantically.

Joe splutters.

" _How long!"_

"S-s--six, weeks, why---"

" ** _six, weeks"_** Crane deflates and leans agains the wall, clearly distraught. "Oh my heart. How did she bear it? Nearly three years there?" In my dream she was so worn after just the one."

"You're not kidding, you....you've been basically dreaming this same timeline while you were out?" 

"Gargoyles, a mirror demon? The jersey Devil? an egyptian creature, the return of the Kindred---"

"We had to raise a bride for that one---"

"It was very disturbing."

"This is insane. Crane, what you're telling me is, you already know what happens next?"

"I pray not." Crane snaps, folding in on himself as if he's caught a chill. "I desperately pray not because it does not end well and I will not abide it." 

"Crane if you know something now is the time to talk because---" the door opens and Jenny steps in, halts momentarily as she watches the two of them, feeling the tension in the air. 

"Hey guys...." she drawls unsurely. "What'd I miss?"

Joe starts to open his mouth and then shuts it, stealing a glance at Crane who shakes his head adamantly no. Don't ask Joe why he's so quick to go along with the whims of this deserting madman, but for the moment he plays along. "Nothing. you ate over there?"

Jenny grimaces. "It's gotta be love because it's not his cooking." she jokes and then winces taking in Crane's face. "She did wait, you know." she says at last. "She had more faith in you than I had."

* * *

 

They've finished washing the dishes and Abbie teased him relentlessly as she scraped burned bits off the pan and they're outside on the porch swing now, his arm around her, and she has not been subtle glancing at the ring. "It's a little weird." she confesses at last, feeling Danny's eyes boring into her. He has a very weighted gaze. The kind that makes her sweat and lights a fire in places that make her passionate and reckless. 

Crane's gaze used to do something to her, once. A flutter or something. A small, little skipping beat that twisted her head around because it would be there one minute and then not. Leaving her dazed and confused, Abbie would wonder if she had imagined it. 

Danny has always looked at her with purpose and clear intent, even when he had tried to hide it behind 'being her boss' He's very transparent that way and she loves that the most about him. His fingers dangling on her shoulder, lips to her temple, rumbling voice in her ear, she knows where she stands with him. No guessing games. 

"I don't doubt it. Do you like it?"

"It's beautiful."

He bites his cheek. "Was my grandmothers. She'd have loved you." 

"Danny," she whispers, touched by the sentiment, pressing her lips softly against his. "I'm, I'm honoured. I'm sorry I'll never meet her."

"You know I thought about getting you a new one. Something big." he laughs. "But then I thought how ridiculous would an obnoxious rock look on these angelic hands. And I know that's not what counts with you Mills. Family holds strong to you. I knew this would be perfect. " 

"You do know me," she concedes, again feeling how odd it is to think that. For so long there had only been one man she'd have ever said  _knew_ her. Understood her, had seen her at her lowest, most frightened and scared. 

But does that mean she owes something to him? Is she supposed to reserve space in her heart, her life for Ichabod Crane just because he had come first? Is that a debt she's meant to pay? She's not land in which you plant a flag. She's not a thing you claim and no, it doesn't seem fair to herself, or Danny who has been so, so, good to her, to behold herself to Crane, who hadn't spared a second thought on her in all his time away. 

"You in there?" Danny gives her a little shake and his eyes peer deeply into hers before he sighs. "It's Crane isn't it."

"It's really annoying when you do that,"

"What."

"Figure me out." she releases a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding and tucks a strand behind her ear. "There's nothing about me you can't solve. I didn't use to be so easy."

"Let me clarify that  _nothing_ about you has ever been easy," 

A sideways glance, "Thanks."

"I pay attention, Abs. I know what you said about Crane, and....well it ran deeper than friendship, didn't it?"

 _Turn back_ her mind says.  _Turn back from this road, don't go down it, don't._  

"I'm not gonna let you start shutting me out now, Abbie. Talk to me."

"Danny don't you ever get that sometimes---"

"---sometimes you think you're better off turning off your emotions---damn Abbie how much time did we spend breaking you out of that? What is it about Crane that makes you.....I don't know,  _shrink_?"

" _ **Shrink"**_

"I always give it to you straight. He shows up today and suddenly you go from being open and trusting to not wanting to talk anymore. I know you like communicating Abs, hell you need it. Its why I listen. Because I love you, and love gives you what you need."

"Crane and I had this great big duty and it brought us together, in a lot of ways. But, nothing was ever, clear with him. His wife, and he got so weird around people, even Luke, when they'd first met. He's always been....hogging me to himself. It's confusing Danny, having someone commandeer your life, monopolize your time, saying things like, 'I choose to forge my fate with you,' and....holding your hand, running towards you, holding on to you for dear life when you part in purgatory....." his thumbs brushes her cheek.

She's crying. She hadn't even known she'd started. "He stirred me up Danny and then Katrina came back and it was all about her and his son, the strain, and I stood by him and.....he killed her to save my life. I don't know what I expected after that Danny but something, anything but him just, being,  _gone."_ he turns her into his arms, so strong so sure. 

She's not being fair, she knows it. To talk about all these old confused feelings the day after he's proposed, she knows she's not being fair to make him listen to this. 

"My life had direction before he came into it. That path I finally followed when he left. But he rose from the damn dead, a well mannered horror flick, and I lost my mentor, and all of my life's plans as I'd known it. He took two years of my life in mission and duty Danny. Took me on this journey with him and then dropped me. What excuse can he have for that? guilt? fear? I lost and I just seemed to keep  _losing_ once he came, but he was the only thing I had, to make sense of this.....new purpose. He was all I had once it began. And I didn't, and I still don't know what it was."

"I hear you."

"why do you let me do this?" she demands tearfully, pulling away from him. "Why do you put up with this, it----he's past, Danny, he's something that happened to me but---"

"You keep telling yourself that and yet you're here with me crying." 

"I'm scared Danny."

He kisses her forehead. "Of what babe?"

"Of him. I'm terrified of Ichabod Crane. He changed my life once before and I'm afraid he's gonna change it again." Danny's heart breaks to see her eyes shimmering with tears. "And I don't want to  _adjust_ anymore. I don't want to  _adapt_ , do you have any idea how I had upset my life to make him fit? And he _still didn't_. He would have stayed if he did---"

"Abbie. Abbie, _babe_ , you listen to me, okay? Look at me" her beautiful doe eyes look up into his warm dark ones. " ** _I've got you_** you hear me? You didn't do anything wrong, You didn't chase him out of town. You didn't make him leave, that was his choice, his modus operandi, and maybe he'll make sense once he explains, maybe not, but Abbie babe, I love you, you gotta understand,  ** _it's not you_**. It's never been you. Okay? Nothing, you have ever been through---it's not you. It's not your fault. Your father, your mother, Jenny, Crane. Don't live your life blaming yourself for things like that. We can't control everything."

"What about you?" she asks weakly. 

"Well me you've got wrapped around your finger," he confesses, but there's no guile or teasing in it. "I'd do anything for you"

"Stop it."

"No, I would."

"Why."

"I just _would_ Abbie. That's another one of those things you just don't have control over." 

* * *

 

"We have some , preparations, to take care of, Crane." Jenny says, voice stilted. For all intents and purposes she's forgotten how to strategize with Crane as part of the group. 

"Preparations?"

"The Hidden One," Joe starts, eyeing him curiously, wondering if Crane's about to divulge that he dreamed this in his coma too. "Supposed to reach full, omnipotence, soon, and there's the matter of repairing Pandora's box to deal with it."

"Pandora," Crane says in a quiet voice. "She turned coat, did she not?"

"Wait a minute how do you know---" Jenny starts.

"I dreamed it all Miss Jenny. In my coma, I had very vivid nightmares about the next tribulation, and barring my absence, from what Master Corbin has told me, it's all come true." 

"So you know that Abbie is heading an expedition back to the catacombs tomorrow." Jenny replies tightly. She doesn't like the idea, has been protesting it loudly and vehemently since they'd even brought it up. She still says burn the goddess and find SOME OTHER WAY to deal with the Hidden One, but Abbie's bent on this solution. Has gotten it in her head that it's the only sure fire way they can think of in the time frame they've been given. 

And she knows Abbie's right.

But she also knows Abbie was traumatized after being in that place and it's just  _wrong_ to send her back there. She'd offered to go. Jenny is _still_ offering to go. But the minute Abbie had said 'Witness' she knew it was a done deal. Sometimes the word sounds like a curse in Jenny's ears. 

The dangers Abbie has put herself in because of being a 'Witness' makes her hate anything that sounds like duty, destiny, fate.

It always means trouble.

It always means danger.

It always means pain, and it means damning deserting Ichabod Crane. 

* * *

 

 _Catacombs_ the word reverberates in his mind. 

The place in which he'd dreamed they'd escaped from because of the strength of their bond. When he had been on the verge of telling her how vitally important she was to him and had screwed it up with a reference to  _chess_. A nightmare, truly. Everything about those lost six months, an unending torment. 

 _Catacombs_ and if he's correct, the place where that demon box will have its first taste of Abbie's energy, and thus will demand her soul later. 

* * *

Danny and Abbie spend the rest of the day together. They cook dinner again, another disastrous thing, but Danny had insisted on it this time, Heaven only knows why. 

He rubbed her feet, kissed each toe as he did and they talked day dreams of their future. Children, the house they'd have. 

He made love to her, gently and deeply. Capturing her lips anew every time she tried to get a word in edgewise, she doesn't know why but for the first time it feels like Danny knows something she doesn't. Senses something. Like he's trying to distract her, or prove, she's not sure. 

She reached the height of ecstasy thrice, so she doesn't complain. She's boneless and probably babbling by the time she drifts to sleep, with more tender kisses still. 

"I love you Abbie. With all that I am. Heart and soul. Don't you ever forget that."

"Hmmph," she laughs, rolling over away from him, kissing his knuckles before knitting their fingers together. "As if I could ever forget."

* * *

The next morning Abbie isn't tickled to find Crane at their departure site with Jenny and Joe Beside her Danny is rigid. _Figures he would try to pick up where he left off_ , she seethes. _Takes a holiday and steps right back into duty, easy as that. Like he didn't abandon post._

"Leftenant." he starts, posture ramrod straight and clothes neat and clean, eyes alert and focused, looking like the Crane she used to know. The Brave one.

She's about to tell him, tough luck, she's been doing it without him and she can _finish this mission without him_   _too_ when he speaks first. And the words he has the audacity to say make her see several shades of vibrant angry red. 

"I forbid you to go on this trip."

"You  _ **forbid me?!**_ " 

 


	8. Old Habits

"Did I stutter, Leftenant?"

"You gone damn well wish you'd stuttered," she says, surging toward him when Danny throws and arm around her waist, holding her back. He gives Crane a look of disapproval that makes his skin writhe. It's the look one gives an unruly child. When there is a scolding imminent. 

" _Agent._ Mills" Danny corrects,voice measured and controlled. Abbie has momentarily ceased her thrashing long enough for Danny to release her but quickly grasps his hand in hers to anchor herself. Heaven help her she could tear Crane apart. "FBI," he enunciates slowly, deliberately. "Agent Abigail Mills." 

Crane's had a nights rest and he's more prepared for a confrontation than the day prior. Whether or not this is a good thing is yet to be determined. All he knows is, he does recall seeing Reynolds in his dreamscape, and he hadn't gotten along well with the man. It seems very possible the same may hold true in the waking world. 

A look crosses Abbie's face that shocks and appalls Crane. It's  _smug_. She looks up at Danny smiles, and then turns this self satisfied,  _smug_ face on him, as if to say  _Ha!_  

It used to be a face she gave him when she disproved him on her own merit. She used to take issue with outsiders injecting themselves in their squabbles. But she seems pleased that Reynolds has stepped in and that feels like an invasion. 

He's wrong to think it, He knows. Given his own evasion of the sacred sanctity of their bond to now consider it breached, but there's a clear division between them now that speaks of sides, and loyalty, what had once always been an exclusive sport where they were concerned. And now, taking the pair in together, like a united front, finds himself the outsider. They no longer seem to share a team. 

"Agent Mills," He continues with a quick bob of his head and Danny nods curtly in return before he turns back to Abbie. "I would prefer, you not go on this journey."

"And I would have  _preferred_ you'd never come back, but we don't always get what we want," she bites out and Cranes rears back, stung. 

"Abbie," Danny says softly but firm. Cautioning her not to get out of hand. Not to let this virtual stranger to him make her lose her cool. 

But Abbie has been running red hot since Crane dared to even think he had any say in how this played out. 

"I'm sure you feel refreshed, Crane." she manages, still gripping Danny's hand, a little too hard now and that's saying something given how small her hand is. He wills himself not to wince. "I'm sure, you've had time to, clear your head, examine your life, get away from it all, and you're bright eyed and bushy tailed and ready to just, jump right back in." she chimes with false cheer that makes Crane want to shrink. 

He knows what's coming. And no matter how well deserved, it cuts and he is still reeling from her saying she wished he'd never returned. And he knows he's earned it, knows he deserves it, but isn't a thief still disappointed and angry when they're caught.

You always feel a little victimized when you're caught being wrong. Ashamed, guilty. And no one of a sound mind courts such feelings. 

"But I  _didn't take a holiday_ " she says. " _I didn't jump ship. I didn't get, a **break**. No head clearing here!"_ she breaks free of Danny then to rap smartly on her own head and the action borders on slightly deranged, like she's on the cusp of a spiral. "No solitary treks, but moments alone, oh yes, endless moments alone,  **countless** " she barks, advancing on him, and for every step she takes forward, Jenny and Joe take five back, Joe haphazardly snatching at Crane to do the same. Danny advances with her, but a pace behind as if letting her have the wheel. She's the captain of this tirade, she steers the ship.

"With Pandora, cooing about my---" and the voice she affects here sends shivers down all of their spines, " _Wayward Partner. 'Oh whatever shall you **do** Abbie, when the load is too great? who shall bare a part of it with you?_ You know I ended up in hospital Crane? Demon scaring children--you know, the usual--- And it got me and I woke up and Pandora was there--you know if she wasn't on the wrong side until recently I think we'd have been friends? she always took so much time to  _visit_ me Crane. To  _ **check in on how I was doing?**_ She was there all of the times you **weren't**!" she laughs, clapping her hands together and still advancing.

"And she said to me--first person I saw when I came to, don't ask me how the thoughtful witch got in the room--- but she says to me ' _Wouldn't it have been nice if he was here? to commend you on your strength?  To tell you how he admired your will. Isn't it sad you're here alone, and he is wherever he is, and you could die now,"_ Abbie coos in such perfect mockery Crane swears he can see the goddesses face.  _"Abbie you could **die now** and he'd be none the wiser,' _ And she pet, my, hair, Crane. And said Get well soon." 

Of all the dumb things, staggering away from her wrath he asks. "How did she know about me?"

Abbie's laugh rattles his heart. "Prophecy! huh? who'd have thunk it? They all know, Crane!" she leans in, smiling ear to ear. "They, all, know, about us two! Did you think it was a secret? A world unto ourselves?" the smile flashes out, replaced swiftly with stony anger. "Is that why you swept me under the rug? Because you thought, oh, no one will ever know. My dirty little secret that no one has to hear about ever again." she stops short of him. A mere pace away. "I'd have stayed hidden if that's what you wanted. You could have said. You're not the first to walk out on me Crane. I've been there, done that." 

There are tears in her eyes but her composure doesn't break. 

Danny steps forward at last, standing solidly beside her, twining their fingers. 

"You know they  _teased_ me about you Crane. Like children in school? Sorcerers, witches, demons, there were a few hiding in plain sight at training, and they'd ask me, 'Where's your Destiny entwined partner? Where's your fated half?"  her eyes are red and she shifts her weight from foot to foot, as if unsure whether to step in, leading with her fist, or to turn away. "You don't have say now. Got it? I've gotten used to the quiet." 

She turns then, swinging Danny around with her who puts a hand on Crane's chest when he steps forward. He shakes his head tightly once. 

"If you would allow me to explain," he begins but Abbie is talking over and around him, pretending he doesn't exist. 

"Leftenant." he persists and then corrects himself. " _Agent_."

"You guys know what you're about while we're gone?" she asks Jenny and Joe. They nod dutifully. 

"I still don't trust her Abbie." Jenny says, hefting a bag. 

"We get one shot at this, we can't waste it." 

"Agent Mills I---"

"So once we finish obstructing these sources then what?"

"At the very least it holds off his coming out party."

"How many are there?"

"Pandora named like, what, seven?"

"If not more. The window is very precise," Abbie instructs. "You've got to be in and out, quick,"

"No heroics," Danny says. "No solo missions," 

Jenny bristles to think he's directing this at her. 

Abbie backs him. "No solo missions." she echoes and Jenny rolls her eyes.

"Look if I get a chance at the son of a bitch I'm taking a shot at the son of a bitch, and I don't miss."

Abbie pinches the bridge of her nose and begins to mutter under her breath. "I can't do it, I can't leave her here she's trigger happy."

"I am not!"

"Miss Mills!"

"The two of them and Pandora, I don't think it's going to go well, they need more hands, they'll never finish putting them down in time...."

"Miss Mills!"

"We're on a schedule people," Joe chimes helpfully, tapping his watch. 

"How," Abbie mutters. 

"I will go!" 

Quiet. Four incredulous pairs of eyes turn his way. 

"I go to the Catacombs while the rest of you complete the missions with Pandora," Crane continues, formally. Abbie blinks at him and purses her lips.

"No way in hell. You have no clue what we're doing and you're liable to screw it up."

"Agent Mills!" he cries, affronted.  Abbie worries her lip before she turns to her fiance and closing her eyes grasps his coat, pulling him close and sighs. 

"I need you to stay behind, Danny." 

"Whatever you think is best boss." 

She winks an eye open at him. "Boss?"

He winks back. "Don't get used to it."

Of all the times to flirt with her this must be the worst but doesn't she love him all the more for it. The tension evaporates from her body. "You're okay with this?"

"I trust your judgement Abs. I'll keep it together, and more hands, we'll finish quicker.  You know what you're doing. You're just getting there, repairing the box and getting back. But I  _don't want you going alone"_ he pecks her forehead and it takes all of Cranes restraint not to roll his eyes. "And I'm taking a stand on that. You went through too much there on your own."

"But you mean for me to take,  _him?"_

 _"_ It would make him pull his weight at least."

"Oh Danny please don't make me do it," 

"You can't trust him here with the power sites, he's never dealt with Pandora, and you can't, I won't, and don't argue with me, you're  _not_ going alone."

Crane waits for the blowout from this but it never comes. 

To be honest Danny half expects a rebuttal but Abbie doesn't even blink. Unlike Danny, Crane's.....forbidding....had come from a place of entitlement, a place that subconsciously still assumed a level of familiarity and closeness. A place that knew she would be irritated with him, but then he would backtrack and they would laugh about it, as is,  _was_ their way. 

Danny's instruction comes from a protective place of love. Of having been there with her through the healing aftermath returning from the Catacombs. She knows what he's seen, all of her very worst skittish broken moments. She'd say the same thing in his shoes. 

"Don't gloat about this, but you're right." she grits out. 

"I would never gloat." he replies seriously, with just a hint of humour. "Let him tag along. Maybe there's something to be said of it being the Two Witnesses, maybe it'll make the magic, work, better, or something." 

"You buy that?"

"Clocks ticking. We only get so many chances at this, you said so yourself." they lock eyes and he pulls her in and kisses her, her mouth falls open slightly and his hand curls in her hair. "Come back home,  _safe_ " he emphasizes as he pulls away. "I love you."

"Love you too."

And he spins on his heels, summoning the others and they depart, leaving her standing with Crane who's face is red from embarrassment or anger who knows and who cares. "Well come on, let's go."

"How will we be commuting, Agent?"

"Leftenant" she shoots back, begrudging and cold. "Agent sounds stupid out of your mouth." she glances over at him and reaches in her bag, unpacking the flag and begins running down the details. 

He is silent when she's finished. 

"Well?"

"You've done very well," he says and then his eyes widen, hands up to show he means no harm. "What I mean, Leftenant, is....you really don't, need me, to do this. You figured all of this out, by yourself."

"Learned Franklin's code too." she replies snappily. 

"Franklin's---"

"I got bored" 

He fidgets in his lap. 

"And you're right, I don't need you." She rises to her feet, zipping up her coat. "But you're here now. I guess I'll pretend that counts for something." she looks him over again and tries to ignore the fluttering feeling in her stomach. 

Crane is strange to her now and she almost doesn't know how to act around him. How to, be. And yet she remembers what it was. How they would have faced something like this with gung-ho enthusiasm. She wishes they had that now. 

And she doesn't want to think about what it means to wish for anything related to Crane. Now is not the time for nostalgia. 

"You ready to do this Crane?"

He rises beside her, dusting his hands off. "Indeed."

Something about the way he says it, with such surety, that old, classic Crane, makes a traitor out of her mouth and she quirks a faint smile. He offers a small fleeting one back before she remembers herself and leads the way toward the boat. 

He pauses to help her in, of course. Takes the bag from her first, does all of the familiar things. She denies his hand and gets in herself. 

Addictions can be familiar things, comforting. It doesn't mean you should just up and go back to them. 

And she'll spend the first twenty minutes of the trip reasoning with herself why she likened Crane to an Addiction. 

Why she'd considered him an addiction of hers. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so Abbie and Crane are taking that return trip to the catacombs, ay yi yi.


	9. Wreckage

Crane rows.

Steady pulling back and forth the oars dip in and out of the water. Trickling drops and his huffing breath is the constant accompaniment. She's bundled herself in the blanket and she refuses to look at him. It won't do to carry on like this for the whole trip but she tells herself anything is possible. She's still ruminating on her addiction comparison, giving herself a little shake every now and again as if trying to rattle the thought loose when he inhales deeply. She closes her eyes.  _Here it comes._

"Leftenant," 

"Don't---"

"You had your turn," he says quietly, firmly, she could take it rudely if she wants just to start a fight with him, but its in the set of his jaw, the tension in his shoulders, he's not trying to be confrontational. He just wants to be heard. Which she has half a mind to deny him too, after all that silence now he has something to say? 

"Nine months is a long time for a sojourn." 

She scoffs.

"Too long. Too long for anyone in a partnership such as ours, to go, off the grid. I don't have good reasons, Leftenant. They will never be good ones." he chews his lip but keeps rowing. "I did exactly as you said, clearing my head, trying to reflect, to make sense of myself." he lifts his head to meet her eyes. "I'll never make sense to myself again Abbie." 

She concentrates on the water passing by and clenches her jaw at the sound of her name. He's always made it sound so heavy, so weighted. It could change the weather the way he says her name. She's mad to know it still has the same effect. That it's a spell that still holds. 

"I saw what our journey entails, really, when Katrina had you by the throat. I saw what my mission and stubbornness to rescue that woman, to drag you into it, it could have  _killed_ you." 

Abbie perks up, gazing into the distance. "Crane."

"My presence in your life has put you in harms way, again, and again."

"Crane," Abbie insists, feeling the boat rock as he gets swept up. She grips the sides.

"I'd never seen it so clearly as I did then. The things that I do, things that pertain to me, they do you harm, Abbie. I won't pretend I ran to protect you. I didn't do you any favours doing that, I know it. I was afraid. Afraid of how close it was. Afraid of losing...." he clears his throat. "For a moment it had seemed I'd be better off not having anything, than risk losing everything. I was selfish. I was....despicable. All of those things. And while away, yes, I did some research and something kindled my interest and I opened my mouth to say, 'look, leftenant'"

"Look Crane," Abbie grits out as the boat gives a violent pitch. 

"And you weren't there---what was that?"

"Rocks!" 

The tide has taken an ill turn, buoying them down the river and Crane's distraction while delivering his confession or whatever the hell leaves him at a disadvantage to right themselves. As if to emphasize his own foolishness, an oar slips from his hands. 

"Here we go" Abbie groans, leaning over the edge and trying to snatch at it and as if it means to spite them, slips again right through her fingers. "Damnit." She lurches to reach for it again. Crane can't help himself, he lunges to grab her to keep her from going overboard. 

"Leftenant!" 

"Crane don't move!"

And they capsize. 

* * *

"You had, one job!" she splutters as she breaks the surface, splashing angrily at him "One, DAMN job!" trying to grab hold of the bag bobbing merrily in the opposite direction. 

His fingers grasp it as he paddles next to her and the two of them try to catch the disobedient boat that seems rather bent on racing away from them. 

"I mean we could have waited for the heart to heart back home."

"Under the watchful eye of your fiance?" he sneers, spitting out a mouthful of water as he swings his arms, and manages to get a hand on the back of it, frantically grasping to turn it over and hold it still until she can catch up. 

"I don't see why not, he's been the only one looking out for me since you've been gone."

"I can't turn back time Leftenant."

"Neither can I" she spits back. "I can't help that I fell in love while you were gone, Crane, I'm sorry it offends your senses." She at last hauls herself back into the boat, taking the bag from him and prays the boat won't upend with them again as he clambers back aboard. "Actually I'm not sorry at all."

" _Thank you_ Leftenant for clarifying" with a grunt heaves himself in and lies there like an over grown water rat, hair straggly wet strands in his eyes, long torso emphasized by his soaking wet clothes clinging to him, his coat is heavy and waterlogged. He looks ridiculous. 

"Besides which, you felt bad for a bit and then said, oh screw it, what's another half year?"

The image of Crane struggling to rise in his dripping coat, is so absurd she wants direly to laugh. Crane is an absolute spectacle when dishevelled. All the better when he's flustered. "I had every  ** _intention_** of coming back to you when I'd understood what a horrid error I had made. Every intention"

"It takes you nine months to know you've made a mistake? My God Crane you'd have been a horrible woman, you'd be giving birth by now and going 'oh, perhaps sleeping with Abraham wasn't such a good idea"

"I'm going to choose to ignore whatever....disgusting implication you were trying to make citing Abraham."

"I did say if you were a woman."

"You think I would lay with Abraham if I were?"

"You were best friends."

"And so?!"

She blinks, snapped back into focus of where they are, and a strange awareness that they aren't being strictly hypothetical. "You're right, Crane. Being, best friends doesn't mean you would have had anything special. Men and women are friends all the time. I was wrong to assume that would....mean anything more, in _any_ circumstance." she finishes pointedly.

Sobering, Crane begins to shirk off the soggy coat, coughs and chafes his hands together because the air is chilly and Abbie is feeling it too. She throws off her jacket and then they're both there, shivering, in wet clothes, and nothing to be done because their outer garments are wet and the blankets are wet. And they're out in open air on the river with  _one, count it **one** sodding oar._

"My flight went down." he says tightly, reaching stiffly for the oar they'd managed to recoup and trying miserably to steer with it. The boat starts to turn in circles. "Damn it." he mutters, stopping immediately and placing it across his lap. The boat continues to turn and the sky begins to cloud over. 

If it rains Abbie will assume someone is playing a trick on her. 

"I was out for six months."

"Out?"

"Coma, the nurse told me. Six months of nothing. That wasn't planned that wasn't intentional, I.....I could never stay away _that long_ , Abbie."

"You say that like the time you were gone wasn't! It was Crane! it was  _damn_ long"  She huffs, rubbing her arms. Groaning at the feeling of wet fabric beneath her fingers. She tries to pinch it away from her skin but there's nothing to be done for it. "And top of which I'm going to catch pneumonia, this day continues to bare gifts" 

His mouth quirks into a smile. 

"What" she snaps. "What's funny huh? Dying on this damn river? and the world still being doomed besides? Not my idea of a good time Crane." 

"No, Leftenant, I...." it's useless to elaborate, the way she's glaring at him. He sighs in defeat. 

The boat spins. The clouds shift. 

"Coma huh." she doesn't meet his eyes, her hands are clasped between her knees and her eyes are tracing over her engagement ring. Thankful it didn't get away in the water. She wouldn't have been able to live with herself if it did. "Six, months. I was back in Sleepy Hollow by then." she says distantly. "Had a new superior who believed in me, just like August." she bites her lip. "He got killed too. I don't know what it is with me, things don't go well for my bosses. Week later Danny shows up." she swallows. "I'm sorry to hear that...you were out." 

"Leftenant,"

"Yes Crane" she sighs tiredly. 

"I dreamed while I was.....away....."

She chuckles darkly. "That what we calling it now? a vacation within a vacation? hmmph." and shakes her head, tucking a wet tendril behind her ear. "Come on son tell us what you dreamed."

"Leftenant you are patronizing me."

"I'll do what I want" she snaps.

"I dreamed everything about this tribulation. About Pandora, the Hidden One, You....when Joe told me you'd been in the Catacombs the equivalent of three years---"

"Wait." she holds a hand up, squints at him. "How'd you know what."

"Joe told me six weeks,"

"But how did you know that would be nearly three years,"

"Because in my dream you were only there for two. Because I needed you and I thought we were doing everything to bring you back but when I got there you told me ten months, Leftenant." she studies his eyes, over bright with unshed tears. "And you were so, troubled. Leftenant. The idea that you had really been there longer---"

"It certainly was no damn picnic," she cuts him off, breaking eye contact and drifting a hand in the water. The boat's gone still at last, and like a gift a heavy branch drifts within reach. 

"I can't imagine what you went through."

"Ran into Betsy," she says offhandedly, seizing it. "Storming through the place like a lunatic for what must have been the thousandth time and I'd just been missing a chamber. Over and over again, I walk in and there she is. Paddle." she instructs, dipping her branch in the water. 

"You saw Betsy?"

"We had a chat, we escaped, I came home and Danny took care of me." 

 _Not you_  

"Right." Crane nods, grasping the oar and making great careful sweeping strokes. 

Some favourable force moves the current, and they start gliding forward smooth as can be. "Ah hah." She says keeping hold of her branch, rummaging for the flag, and she holds it out before her and starts to sing. 

* * *

 

She sings them to shore.

And he sits there dumbly until she finishes, awestruck before a preserved ghoul comes hurtling towards them.

It instantly jolts him from his reverie. Abbie is quicker than he is, precise, deft, swift. More astute and impressive than she was before and that's saying something.

"Had a lot of solo practice with creeps Crane. Did me some good to watch my own back."

 _Ah, another barb_. He imagines every little one sticking in his heart. From that point forward it's a tedious trek to their destination, and he tries again to open dialogue. 

"Can we not be taking this hill before you start" she huffs, as if sensing his train of thought. When he remains silent she says, "Thank you."

* * *

 

Reentering the cavern she bellows "Honey I'm home!"  

He thinks she does it purely to unnerve him. It's everything he saw in his visions, but there's no makeshift chess table, and a more harried calendar countdown and scribbled over map. "Leftenant, before we go any further, I need to explain to you, I know, how this battle ends."

"You know," she says, casting a glance over her shoulder as she saunters around, touching the walls almost lovingly. "A man once woke up from a grave and told me we were part of a prophecy. Said he chooses to forge his fate with me, real ride or die type, you know the kind? Said its not our fate for one to bury the other. Lovely lines, beautiful, and then,  _poof_ he disappeared. Like a figment of my imagination, I don't know if anything he said was entirely true. You know what the moral of the story is Crane?"

He is still watching her stroke the engraved symbols and parading around the cave as if she means to show it off. 

"What, you said so yourself, spent nearly three years here, it's like a home away from home." she snarls before marching ahead and picking a corridor. "The moral, of the story is,  _I'm not putting too much stock in what you say_. Come on."

"How do you know where you're going." 

"Well you weren't there to figure everything out so I guess I did it myse---!" 

"Leftenant!" 

She'd stepped on a weak tile and it's fallen through beneath her, her fingers grasp at jutting piece of rock. legs kicking air. She grumbles irritably. "Come on Mills. Come on," kicking upwards and pulling determined to pull herself up. 

"Leftenant." His pale hand appears before her and she scrunches her eyes closed and continues to struggle on her own. "Leftenant." he says more sharply 

 _I can do this myself,_ she thinks  _i've hard worse scares, I don't need---_

The rock shifts, edging out of the earth its wedged into and she slips. A gasp escapes her but she refuses to crack. She won't. She's not going to die here. And she is not going to beg Ichabod Crane to help her. 

"Abbie  _please!_ " 

The rock comes loose and she grabs for his fingers just in time. They curl around her hand and it feels like her arm is being wrenched out of her socket but he hauls her up onto the ground and before she can understand what happening she is trapped in his arms and everything in her brain and her stomach begin to alert. 

Warning warning, danger danger. Sirens and bells and whistles blast furiously in her ears. 

His scent, his restored warmth, even his fingers feel familiar and at home pressing protectively against her. How does she know that's his index finger pressing right there between her shoulder blades? That it's his left hand, thumb first moving back and forth  before the other fingers curl to follow, stroking her crown? And thumbs again, angling her head, tipping her chin up and his lips---

_No._

But they're there. On hers. It's indelicate and it doesn't even make cohesive sense the way they move. It's not so much a kiss as some half murmured breathy thing but the point is she'd never known what this would be like, had long since ruled out the possibility this could ever happen and knows now that it  _isn't_ supposed to happen. Just as she comes out of shock in time to pitch herself away he gets his footing and kisses her,  _properly._ Lips soft on hers, lips parting and then--

_Oh._

**_Oh._ **

_No._

_Nope, no, no._ Something is pressing into her chest too hard and it's her engagement ring, her hands trapped against her body in Crane's embrace and she struggles once this new feeling begins to wear off. He finally breaks away and looks downright scandalized with himself. 

And she slaps him. 

That helps the look too. 

"Leftenant I--"

 _Leftenant? **Really?**_  

"Let's move Crane."

"Abbie."

"We're on a dead line." she avoids his gaze and swipes a hand across her mouth, stomping on the butterflies in her stomach. "Come on."

Thoroughly chastened, one cheek still red, he lets her lead the way. 

* * *

 

She's been here before so Crane is a sidekick as she lets them in to the chamber. "When I stumbled on Betsy in here, I did notice the writing, looks like the gibberish on the box," she says, matter of fact, willing her fingers not to tremble as she reaches for the bag from Crane, withdrawing quickly as if she fears further contact. Or contamination. He's not sure. With her back still turned and taking out the fragmented pieces she speaks.

"When we get back home Crane, you should go."

"Go?"

She nods.

"Go _where?_ "

"Anywhere!" she exclaims breathlessly, her exuberance clearly forced. "The world is your oyster. You've got a taste for it now right? You've, acclimated. You can go, and explore, and get more out of this world and--"

"But, _Abbie_ "

"We're fine there." She says. "We're a good team. The four of us, what we've got. It works. We've got ourselves figured out."

"Leftenant," he starts, dismayed. "We are---"

"I learned something, it doesn't really take Two."

"There are still...."

"More tribulations to face and who knows how soon the next one will be? Will you be here for that one? Should I send an invite?"

"I was in a coma!"

"And that's a serious thing, sure it is, and I am glad, I am, damn glad you're alright, living, all that good stuff. But we don't....Crane my life stopped making complete sense with you here and made even less when you left.  _I_ stopped making sense. I--hah, I don't know!" she turns at last throwing her hands in the air helplessly. "I still can't make sense of what this...." she gestures between them "is....and it's not the time to explore it."

"It's our bond Abbie, it needs tending,"

"And tend it when, huh? while I plan my wedding? during my walk down the aisle? my honey moon?"

He opens his mouth to protest but she cuts him off again. 

"I have a man in my life. A good,  _good_ man, Crane. Listened to me rant rave and cry over you. Eh? He knows about you, everything I couldn't understand about you and ,I he knows it. How my life got shook up like a snow globe with you in it. How I saw things.....went places...." she trails off, she didn't use to be bitter about purgatory.

She had coloured it with the memory of their reunion, how he'd held her when she'd dragged him through the portal, how he hadn't wanted to let go.

It wasn't until she'd told Danny about it and he had replied incredulously, 'He  ** _traded_** you?' that she began to see it for the exchange it was, at its core. "I have a bond, with  _that_ man. And there's no room for.....us in it."

"It will take time,"

"I don't have, time, Crane. My life, the world, keeps on spinning whether you're here or not." and she doesn't mean to sound cruel, at this point. But he doesn't seem to understand what he's trying to ask her to do. "The damage we have needs more healing than I've got to give, in my life right now. Take the time away, maybe one day you can visit."

"Visit?  _visit?_ "

Abbie ruffles her hair and folds her arms, trying to return her focus to the task at hand. 

"When?" he demands. "Before or after the wedding? When you have your first child?"

"When we get home you should go, Crane."

"Heavens,  _Abigail_ are you, _breaking up_ with me?" completely aghast.

Her eyes shimmer when she turns to look at him. "There'd have to be something there to break." 

 

* * *

Shaken they stare at one another. 

"Abbie if this is about that kiss---"

She puts a hand up to stop him. "The box." and nods to the wall. "Think that's the incantation for it." 

"I was out of line, but you must know, Abbie listen to me first off I know what happens--"

"Crane. Please" she begs. 

She never begs. 

It breaks his heart.  

He turns his attention to the scrawl along the border and then glances at the box. He doesn't bother to ask because she is proving so contrary--and rightly so---as he grabs her hand and tugs her up beside him.  He remains facing the box, she turned toward the wall."You read."

"I don't speak--"

"You could figure out Franklins code you can read that." 

She fends off the small flare of pride at his words as she begins. 

He watches it carefully, as the pieces begin to glide and fit back together as if dragged by magnets, and once whole, how it sits there, patiently. He almost thinks it won't bother to do anything at all until Abbie reaches a point in the script that says "With an Eternal---"

 _There!_  

The lid of the box begins to lift and Crane springs forward, smacking it sharply shut and Abbie looks at him strangely. He thinks to try again and to tell her about his premonitions but the way she looks at him tells him she's not up to accepting anything he says. 

The trust is broken, and he has himself to thank for that. 

"Well, back we go." she announces and he slips the box carefully in the bag, throwing it over his shoulder. He's not letting it anywhere  _near_ her. "It's not as bad the way we got here, at least." her laughter is light and nervous.

* * *

He ties the rope around her. 

He expected her to fuss with him, fight him on it, but she holds still as he does, even when his hands linger after, she lets hers come up to rest on his arms around her for just a moment, before stepping back and letting go. He lifts her on top the well. 

She lets him. These traitorous moments of closeness, why does she allow them now? 

Because she gave Crane his walking papers, she's.... _Abbie what have you done_ told him to leave. She rests her hands on his shoulders lets herself look into his eyes, really look. 

She wants to remember them like this. Clear and blue. On their last mission together. Her thumb brushes his cheek. "Tally-ho" she whispers.

Crane watches her a moment before taking the leap himself. "Goodbye, Leftenant." 

And jumps. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am NOT done and NO it has not been decided who Abbie chooses because we STILL have to deal with that damn cursed box. Stay with me, you know how I roll, and you trust me by now, right?


	10. Next

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey look, I don't kill off you know who here just for fun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, COMMENTS. Because I feed on them, and they inform me. And you give great ideas and feedback and I love talking with you.
> 
> Thanks for coming along on this ride! ^.^ <3

"Danny let me go!" Jenny flails. "I had him!"

"Sisters orders and  _mine_   _no solo missions._ "

"Well guess what we didn't beat him to the beacons AND he's still alive, so I'm sure Abbie's going to be so much more impressed with you---Abbie!" 

They were faster than they had hoped to be returning, just missing the Hidden One overflowing with red demonic power but luckily Jenny didn't endanger anyone in the process. Joe stands tall among them, Pandora further back, observing in that cool unsettling way. 

Abbie goes straight to her sister, laughing a little. "Success," she whispers in Jenny's ear. "How'd things go here?"

"Commander and chief over there stopped me from killing the Hidden One." 

"I took my eyes off her for a second and she was dashing up a hill, I had to strong arm her behind a tree before he caught on," Danny explains, none to pleased himself with how things had played out.

"And in that time, Hidden One levelled up. So. Omnipotence reached, level of screwed? infinite."

"I'm so glad I'm the optimist in the family," Abbie drawls, Joe steps forward to give her a hug and then she bee lines for the man who looks close to beating himself up.

"Maybe I should have let her take the shot."

"Danny," she exhales as she steps into his arms. "Maybe you should have.....but you listened to me. I don't know if I should be flattered or scared that you would listen to me so blindly."

"And let's be honest, I don't think you'd have forgiven me letting something happen to your sister."

"No I wouldn't have." 

Danny pulls a face. "You alright? you're shivering."

"Came back up through the river again to return. But we got the box."

Only then does anyone bother to turn over their shoulder and take in Crane. 

To his credit he stands tall, bag over shoulder, face an unreadable mask. Jenny and Joe step towards him, clapping him on the shoulder and Joe throws an arm around him, as if welcoming an old comrade. Danny comes forward next, gently disengaging from Abbie and approaches with his hand extended. The air is charged as everyone, even Pandora watching from a distance stand and stare. 

Crane wants to scream. He wants to fling his coat to the ground and tear his shirt off his back and more than anything, unfounded and undeserving as it is he wants to land Danny a solid punch to the jaw, to the gut, to bruise those lips that have been kissing the Leftenant, to break those hands that have been holding her, to bruise the chest that she has laid on, crying her confusion and hurt---but how dare he want a revenge for something he caused? 

This man did Abbie no harm. It was he. 

"Good job, Crane." his tone is business like and neutral, as if he's waiting for Crane to decide whether or not they'll argue. 

He wants to tell this man, this, 'good  _good'_ man, that he kissed his fiance and she hadn't immediately stopped him. Crane wants to hurt him but he has no right because hurting Reynolds will be hurting Abbie and hasn't he done enough? 

He tries and struggles to understand how he's supposed to just, go away, when this is done. It's quite a different matter to be dismissed rather than leave of your own free will. " _When we get back home, you should go Crane"_  

His mind is still trapped there, in the catacombs, relaying that conversation with Abbie again and again, looking for a loophole, anything, there must be something, some way, he can right things. He knows he was wrong, but how can it be this impossible to fix? 

Danny looks at him strangely and only then does he remember to nod  thanks for the...congratulations, he supposes and Danny withdraws. Abbie is watching him as he fidgets, and as he tries to meet her eyes she turns away, wrapping an arm around Reynolds. 

"You've done it now." Pandora says as the  group draws nearer. "I will go ahead but you must act quickly before the power has time to settle in him and grow. I hope you haven't done further damage to my box."

"It's well in hand, Pandora," Crane calls, long strides carrying him to the head of the group. He lowers his voice "And I want to make something clear. Do not think because you have spent more time with the Leftenant than I, that it makes her a willing houseguest."

Pandora's gaze glides his way, a small smirk curling her mouth. "Why, You must be Crane. A pleasure."

"Damned witch." he hisses and she coughs a surprised laugh. 

"Do you hear me? You are not to call---"

"All that time away and you dictate her choices? How sweet is her devotion to you, to let you order her around so."

"This has nothing to do with our relationship---"

"And how goes that, my understanding," And she glances over their shoulders at Jenny and Joe walking side by side, talking closely in hushed whispers, they look up at him walking with the goddess and then at Danny and Abbie behind them. 

Danny and Abbie together, knitted to the others side. His arm secure around her shoulder and she is quiet as a mouse, even though it's evident he's trying to coax words from her. 

"My understanding," Pandora coos, turning back to face him, "Is that she's betrothed. Is she not?"

"Pandora" he growls. "You are not to touch the Leftenant, are we clear?"

"We all answer to our fates, Ichabod Crane. We pay our prices." 

And with terrifying speed, becomes a shadow, darting further and further away to the Hidden Ones lair. 

She's left Crane with some words to contemplate. Answering to fates and paying prices. 

" _When we get home Crane, you should go_ " 

* * *

 

"Abs, talk to me what happened out there." 

Her body never ceases to amaze her with its depth of betrayal. She starts to cry. 

"Whoa, whoa whoa hey."moving around in front of her, grasping her arms he halts their progress entirely, the rest of them keep marching on. " _Hey_. Are you hurt? what happened?"

She denies it even knowing who she's dealing with. "Nothing, Danny."

"Mills."

"Nothing!" she shouts. "Just this once, Danny can't it be nothing?"

She watches him wrestle with himself and for a second she thinks she's won, that this little pain and disconcerting ache can be hers alone for a bit. How sick is it that one excursion with Crane makes her want to hold onto these pains? Like some little precious secret? 

_Because they're all you have of him._

_That's why, it had always been so hard to talk about it, to share it, to let it go. Because when you had the pain, the  memories, that bitterness it was **him** and if you held onto it, twisted and miserable as it made you,  **you** still had him._

Now, after what she said to Crane, about him leaving, she feels an absurd desperation to hang onto this one last hurt. Her last scrap of Crane. 

Danny watches her carefully, and she flushes under the intensity of it before he speaks and how she wishes she could  _hate_ him for asking, "Is it Crane?"

Pretence, is a foolhardy, stupid thing to cling to. "I hate you, and I think I mean it this time." but her voice is so small. 

He doesn't say anything after that, patiently waiting for her to divulge. 

"Look Danny now is not the time---"

"He touch you?"

"What?"

"Did. He. Touch. You."

Her mouth twists. "In the Catacombs....."

His fists clench. "Where."

"What?"

"Did he hurt you?"

"What? Danny no,"

The expression on his face changes. "Oh. How what...then..."

"Nothing, happened, Danny. You have to believe me, I, I fell, and he pulled me up and he got carried away Danny and.......he kissed me,"

"He, kissed you."

"......yes Danny." 

"That man has the nerve to shake my hand and he's been back all of two days and he tries to put the moves on you? On a mission?" his voice is coloured with more disbelief than anger, though it simmers there, just beneath the surface. 

"It doesn't matter because he's leaving soon as we wrap things up today." she nods hurriedly, now aiming to catch up to the others when Danny grabs her hand. 

"Leaving? Again? so soon?"

"We don't need him here." she answers. "We've got Jenny, and Joe, and I have you. There's no contest"

"You don't need me to do this." he smiles. "You don't really need any of us. But I'm honoured to take this on with you." 

A smile threatens to spill across her face. "I told him he can go. Go back out into the world. Enjoy himself. Now hurry up Reynolds, we still have work to do!" she jokes, turning and going into a light jog when Danny's voice rings out after her. 

"Did you tell him to leave because you choose me, Abbie, or because you're afraid you won't if he stays?"

She stops in her tracks, and lets the words sink in. 

* * *

 

The Hidden One is laughing at the top of his lungs, rattling the cave and shooting of sparks and flames as they enter. Pandora had taken off and bid them wait while she made pleasantries with him. They stand on shaky ground still but there seems to still be some fractured half baked understanding that she backs him. 

So he thinks. 

But then there's the box, and it's open and he's firing off in a rage and howling his curses at Pandora and she says the fateful words then. That the box isn't strong enough. That it needs more, power. That it needs, an Eternal Soul. 

* * *

What is a soul.

The spiritual occupant of the mortal coil. The living essence within. It's the light that burns. The source of instinct and gut, wisdom, and love. 

Eternity, is measure by depth. By fathomless, infinite things. 

An inherent nature, yes, a predestined role, might dictate that no better offering could there be, but the Soul of a Witness. 

But a stubborn love.

An unflinching, deep, unruly sometimes, forgiving others, love.

A love that might transcend their own common sense is steadfast and weathers all storms---yes that, too, is a forever, an Eternal. It becomes its own, unexpected flame.

* * *

"It needs you, Abbie." Pandora coaxes. "Your, eternal soul. Come, it is your destiny."

She feels its draw, is mesmerized as the vapour within begins to unfurl and then---

"Abbie No!"

And then---

she's knocked to the ground.

A wind, rushing through, whistling and howling and the Hidden One screaming angrily. Multiple shouting voices and blinking, dazed from where she hit her head she rolls over on her back and the world freezes.

Her heart,

Her heart.

Her weary, battered heart.

Won't survive this.

It can't.

Her feet are already moving, bounding back up the steps, and she cries and screams but it's too late.

"NO." to her knees. " _NO **NO** " _

All composure falls away.

Her wailing echoes back at her. Denying the reality, laughing at her with it. Everything else, is background noise, faded mute, grey.

"No"  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here we have it folks. 
> 
> We have reached the crossroads. Two roads diverged in a wood, and YOU dear readers now get to choose which road you take next , to your right, "Help Me Get Through" to your left "Don't Let Me Lose You". First chapters to be posted by Monday, Tuesday at latest. 
> 
> I'm gonna try to more or less update them at the same time, and keep some events similar, but I'm officially taking the reigns into my hands now and it's no holds barred, I go full out. 
> 
> I will be calling the series as a whole The "HeartWork Trilogy"


End file.
